The money kept by the cinemas can be anything up to 45-50% of the gross takings from what I've read and once you factor in the stuff like marketing & distribution, the studio having to rake in double the budget suddenly doesn't sound so excessive.

I think another thing that seemed to hurt Dredd badly is the fact that it seemed to disappear from the cinemas unusually quickly.

I enjoyed the film a lot - it was rather refreshing to see someone make the film and not water it down to get a low age rating which seems to happen a lot these days. Kudos to Urban for keeping in tune with the character too and not whipping the headgear off to show his face to the audience.